nd gentle
enough; but I have carefully excluded personalities,--though I
readily concede that my course of argument, which pervades all I
write or select, has been to cut away the ground from under the
feet of every denomination in the province, outside of the Church.

The papists, I firmly believe, are meditating some grand movement
all over the world; and it would be glorious indeed if Protestants
could find a common centre of union. But what can I, in my humble
way, do? I dare not drop the necessity of the apostolical
succession,--though I might dwell less upon it, and avoid, as much
as possible, as I always have done, to mix it up with offence to
other denominations. Yet, as I before intimated, the assertion and
maintenance of it, in the simplest and least controversial manner,
must ever provoke hostility. It is an endless subject to get
upon....

I shall be very happy to call on you at an early opportunity, and
obtain, or rather revive, the pleasure of your personal
acquaintance. It would be the happiest Christmas I ever spent, if
it witness the extinction of long theological enmities, and the
dawn of an era of Christian concord and love.

On the 29th December, Dr. Ryerson wrote a private note again to Mr.
Kent. He said:--I was glad to learn by the last _Church_ that you will
give my remarks a place in your columns, and that you cordially and
elegantly respond to the general spirit and design of them....

I have had a correspondence with the Editor of the _Guardian_ in
reference to the mode of conducting it, in regard to the Church of
England, and in some other respects. I am happy to be able to say that
he has at length yielded to my reasonings and recommendations, and will,
I have no doubt, conduct the _Guardian_ in accordance with the general
views expressed in my communications to you.[116] To-day's _Guardian_,
as you see, presents a visible and agreeable improvement in the points
referred to.

I blame you not for your strict and high principles as a churchman, but
I do not think that you do now make sufficient allowance for difference
of forms and ceremonies in the common faith of Protestantism. I think
you should allow as much as Archbishop (Lord Keeper) Williams has done,
and as much as is involved in the passage quoted by him from Irenaeus.
Why should we be "unchurched" any more than the continental churches?